Decorative floor coverings comprising resilient material have been in use for many years. Usually these floor coverings have been fastened to subfloors with adhesives; however, the installation of such coverings is time consuming and expensive. Therefore, it is desirable to place the floor coverings on subfloors without the use of adhesives; i.e., to loosely lay the covering on the subfloor. In such circumstances, the weight of the loose-lay floor covering itself tends to hold it in place, although it may also be pinned to the subfloor by furniture, appliances, and other objects which rest upon it.
Loose lay floor coverings should have the following characteristics; namely, they should not curl or dome; they should not shirk or grow with time or under the influence of environmental change; they should stay in place under the influence of a rolling load; and they should withstand or accommodate the movement of subfloors without buckling. The latter problem creates special difficulties because subfloors range from those which are dimensionally stable (e.g. concrete) to those which are dimensionally unstable (e.g. particleboard). Other problems are also encountered depending on the type of subfloor over which the loose-lay floor is placed. Thus, the flooring industry has dedicated a considerable amount of time and effort to develop a loose-lay flooring which will have the aforementioned characteristics.